In a taxi with ...Brody Jenner

A regular on the LA scene and the eye candy on MTV’s The Hills, this lad-at-large reveals which Royal he'd like to hang out with

Considering that he has been up all night partying, Brody Jenner is in fine fettle. In a white T-shirt, with a black ‘LA’ baseball cap slung backwards, sporting shades the size of bay windows, he does look moderately tousled but he can’t wait to see some London sights.

‘I have not slept since I’ve been here [four days and counting]. I really haven’t had that much time to go out during the day, as I go out at night. That’s why this cab ride is great. I can actually do some sightseeing.’

An evening at nightclub Whisky Mist has hardly left a scratch, and we shouldn’t be surprised – partying is one of the things Brody, 26, does best, as viewers of the MTV reality show The Hills will know. The series follows the lives of a group of spoiled 20-somethings in LA, with Brody on hand as a love interest for the show’s star Lauren Conrad (who leaves after season four) and to give her regular doses of boyfriend advice after they split in season three.

But he insists that, in spite of the fact that they share the same name, the Brody Jenner in The Hills and the man I am showing round London are entirely different.

‘On The Hills they don’t show what I actually do. All they want is the drama. I’m a television producer.’

This is undeniable. Brody got into what Angelenos call ‘the business’ when he was 20. He and The Hills villain Spencer Pratt created TV series The Princes of Malibu, in which he was depicted as a frat-boy gadabout freeloading off his stepdad at a massive coast-side mansion.

‘I’d go home and hear my parents arguing – “He’s a dropout.” It gave me that extra bit of drive’

‘We picked up the cameras, pitched it for a year and a half and ended up selling it to Fox television, which for me is one of the biggest accomplishments of my life. Since then it’s been a crazy ride… Hey, that looks fun, that ferris wheel thing. What is it?’

It’s the London Eye, poking over the top of Horse Guard’s Parade. A couple of minutes later and we’re up by Buckingham Palace.

‘Now that’s a house! It looks better than the White House; more my style. I want to visit Prince Harry – Harry’s the man. He’s in the tabloids all the time in the States. People give him flak but he seems like a cool kid, somebody I’d hang out with.’

Hanging out with cool kids in fancy houses is one of the things Brody is known for. Another is his roster of girlfriends – he has dated Nicole Richie, both of the female leads in The Hills (Conrad and Kristin Cavallari) and is now involved with Playboy model Jayde Nicole. But it all creates a problem – how to distinguish the real Brody Jenner from TV’s other ‘real’ Brody Jenner.

It’s harder than it sounds: I have to explain to cabbie Graham from Upminster why we were being chased by paparazzi. In the US, Brody is not just a TV star, he is part of a celebrity cat’s cradle incorporating a gold-medal winning US decathlete (Brody’s dad Bruce Jenner), a former partner of Elvis Presley (Brody’s mum Linda Thompson), a Grammy-winning music producer (Brody’s stepdad David Foster), O J Simpson’s lawyer Robert Kardashian (who was previously married to Brody’s stepmum Kris Jenner) and hence the Kardashian family (Brody’s stepsisters Kourtney, Kim and Khloe are a brood of Brody-ettes with a show in the States, Keeping Up With the Kardashians).

The upsides of coming from team Jenner-Foster-Kardashian are great cheekbones and pots of cash. The downside is that you never feel you earned it.

‘I never wanted to rely on my family for money. I dropped out of college when I was 18 to be in a band. I’d go home and hear my parents arguing – “He’s a dropout.” It gave me that extra bit of drive: “I’ll show you I’m not just a dropout.” That’s when the whole Princes of Malibu thing started. Everyone thinks something like The Hills just falls into your lap. It’s not true. You have to work for everything.’

The entire series five of The Hills is being shown today on MTV from 10am.